Mystory@Kalyani Jain: How my college education impacted my career

Mystory@Kalyani Jain

My 10th board exam score was perfect for me to get into Science or Commerce Stream. But I never shared a good relationship with numbers. Despite the fact that I am not at all good with numbers, I opted for Commerce and that too with Mathematics. Anyhow I tried to build a working relationship with numbers, to some extent I fell in Love with them, but at the end I failed. Then in Class 12th I changed my specialization from Commerce with Mathematics to Commerce with Informatics Practices. I managed to build a good rapport with various Languages like MySQL, JAVA, C++.

It was time for college admissions, I managed 12th boards despite my bad health. I always wanted to do BBA but my mother wanted me to do BCom (Hons) because she always wanted that one of her children should get that “DU tag”. For my happiness, I opted for BBA (Sikkim Manipal University) and for mom’s happiness I applied for BCom Hons (Daulat Ram College, DU) as well.

Anyhow I passed BBA with flying colours and BCom (Hons) with average marks. So, you can very well imagine how my life went…a total roller coaster ride.

How I decided my course and college

I had an inclination towards teaching as a profession. I love teaching and imparting knowledge. My mom is a teacher by profession, so she was supportive of my decision but my dad and sister were absolutely against it because according to them I had enough potential to opt for a better career.

After a lot of fights and arguments, I gave in to the pressure to appear for MBA entrance exam. I still remember it was 8th February, 2015, the day of my MAT exam and my Chachu’s wedding too. I was not even in a mood to study, not in a mood to give MAT but the form was already filled by my elder sister and just to avoid wasting the money spent I gave it a try. I just studied two nights, that’s it. Yes, two nights and the moment I returned home, everyone asked me how was it and my reply was, “I really don’t know, I don’t even know whether I will pass it or not.” But thankfully, I nailed it. I scored 625. I was happy and motivated as well and so was everyone.

I never wanted to go out of town for higher education, I decided to look for some colleges in Delhi itself, though I had got selected in ICFAI Hyderabad. I tried in Amity Business School for MBA in Marketing but because of less marks I was getting MBA in Mass Communication, which I was not interested in. Then I tried in Jagannath International Management School (JIMS), Delhi and I got selected and joined it on 15th June 2015 and it was seriously a turning point in my life.

Did I join the right career

Career decisions cannot be made in a spur of a moment and there is no right time to decide on a career. As humans, we are not sure of the correct option and tend to behave like a pendulum swinging from one side to the other. To make the right decision, we need to first decide on which field of education we need to go into. Each field offers various opportunities, so it’s important to explore before making the final decision. I would suggest take the help of teachers, elders or even alumni, like in my case. Follow your heart and make the best use of opportunities.

How I manage studies along with my job – Tips on time management

Well, managing education and career at the same time is a cake walk for me. I have joined my job four months back and before that I was already into a college routine full of stress. My MBA college follows a trimester system which includes 7 trimesters in a two-year course. Every trimester has 10-12 subjects, i.e., 10-12 subjects in 3 months and besides that we have to give presentations, internals, externals, assignments, live projects for every individual subject.

I have studied 100+ subjects including practical subjects, besides Mentorship Project (TCS), SIP Project (Delhi Press) and now Dissertation Project (with my current company). So I was already into a corporate like routine. My classes used to begin at 9am and ended at 6:30pm. One cannot really be expected to study back to back so many different subjects with just a 10-minute single break between classes. On top of it, it was mandatory for every student to participate in co-curricular activities as well to be an all-rounder.

After my graduation, it was really difficult for me to manage things, because I was never into this routine. It took me complete three months to get settled properly. After getting into JIMS, my perspective broadened and after first 3-4 months I could decide the field I wanted to make my career in. I opted for marketing as my major specialization, and I did really well in that.

I decided to pursue digital marketing and worked very hard…trust me, really very hard. I used to sleep for three hours and spend the rest of my time playing with the Internet and various tools of Digital Marketing, doing college assignments and commuting (my college was two hours away from my home).

How my college helped me shape my career

If we talk about my professional life, I really want to thank my college for polishing me, for all the stress management and time management skills I developed along the way.

Learnings from my college are obviously benefitting me and will benefit throughout my life. As I said, joining JIMS was the turning point of my life. It actually made me a complete corporate package from tip to toe, in terms of a well-rounded personality equipped with skills required for corporate culture. I am a people’s person so I always have an upper hand when it comes to gather knowledge from the experience of experts in the same field.

Time management is something which comes with practice. I always practice time management by challenging myself during the most difficult times. It’s really very important in corporate life because one has thousands of tasks which need to be completed within a particular time frame. I maintain a task sheet, in which I assign all the tasks with deadlines in order to complete them by end of day because personally I don’t like to keep work pending.

Finally, I would just say one thing that do whatever you want to do, pursue whatever you want to but just remember one thing that you have to give your 200% no matter what the results would be, but at least you won’t regret at the end wondering I wish… 

About the Author:

I am an Alumni of JD Tytler School. For my graduation, I did BBA from Sikkim Manipal University (SMU) and BCom from Delhi University (DU). Now I’m about to complete my PGDM from JIMS, Kalkaji.
Professionally, I have been working as a Digital Consultant for the past four months with Internet Moguls, a one stop shop for Hoteliers which focuses on providing digital marketing services to Hoteliers.